A Lesser Evil - Lesley Pearse [48]
Fifi viewed it as a calamity at first but she didn’t tell Dan because she couldn’t be absolutely certain. As the days ticked past and still nothing happened, she swung between dread and delight. It had been hard enough to find this flat, but to find one suitable for a baby would be ten times harder.
But then sometimes she found herself imagining walking a baby in a pram to the park, holding its hand as it took its first steps. She found herself looking in baby-shop windows and even observing heavily pregnant women with real interest.
But whether it was dread or delight she felt, she was afraid of giving up the life she had now. It was good working in Chancery Lane, the other secretaries and typists were fun, they went out shopping together in the lunch hour or sat gossiping in the sunshine. In the evenings she and Dan often went to the pub after their dinner and on Saturday afternoons they went off exploring London, usually eating out. On Sundays they stayed in bed until later. All that would end with a baby.
Then there were her parents. Would this heal the rift or make things even worse?
Chapter six
‘Pregnant?’ Dan repeated. His expression was one of deep shock.
‘I knew you wouldn’t like it,’ Fifi said, and promptly burst into tears. She had waited a full month to make absolutely certain before telling him, and every day had been miserable for her.
‘Who said I wouldn’t like it?’ he said, getting up from his chair and pulling her into his arms. ‘I was just surprised, that’s all. Give me a few seconds to take it in and I’ll lead you in a joyful tango around the room.’
‘You can’t do a tango,’ Fifi sobbed. ‘Can you?’
‘How hard can it be? You just lean the girl over like this,’ he said, bending her backwards. ‘And hold a rose between your teeth. I’ll have to pop out for one of those.’
Fifi’s sobs turned to a giggle.
She had felt sick almost all day, and that was what finally made her blurt the news out to Dan the minute she came in from work.
‘That’s better,’ he said, holding her face between his two hands and showering kisses all over it. ‘So we’re going to have a little Reynolds. When will it be?’
‘Early next March, I think I’m just on seven weeks,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you cross?’
‘Cross!’ he exclaimed. ‘Why should I be? It’s great news, the best ever. I always wanted a son and heir.’
‘It might be a girl and we’ve got nothing for him or her to inherit,’ Fifi reminded him.
‘Except our looks and brains,’ he said, and his smile grew ever wider as he looked at her.
‘But we can’t have a baby here. Imagine having to pull a pram up all those stairs,’ she said anxiously. ‘And how will we find another place we can afford?’
‘Old worry-guts,’ he said with affection. ‘We leave the pram in the hall in the time-honoured tradition of slum dwellers.’
Fifi looked stricken.
‘I was joking.’ He laughed. ‘We’ll find somewhere else. If I work all day Saturdays we’ll soon have enough for a deposit on a house of our own. A bloke at work said he only put down two hundred. We could scrape that together.’
Fifi leaned into his arms. For a whole month she had been so worried and scared. But now Dan knew and seemed happy about it, she felt inclined to be that way too.
‘We’ll have to tell your parents,’ Dan said thoughtfully as he held her. ‘With luck it might even make them accept me.’
Fifi looked up at his words. He never mentioned her parents any more, but she realized then that he had been brooding about them. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly, suddenly seeing that she only ever considered how situations affected her, and rarely thought about how it was for him.
‘Don’t be,’ he said, kissing her on the nose. ‘I don’t suppose I’ll be too happy if my daughter wants to marry a guttersnipe either.’
‘You aren’t a guttersnipe,’ she said quickly. ‘Don’t say such things.’
‘There’s only this much,’ he said, holding up two fingers an inch apart, ‘between me and the Muckles. If I’d married